STANDOFF IN THE GULF

STANDOFF IN THE GULF; Hostages Had a Shared Anxiety: Just Waiting for Something Bad

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY, Special to The New York Times

Published: December 11, 1990

Fear, far more than physical suffering or cruel treatment, was the invisible bond that linked the hundreds of American, Japanese and European hostages who were prisoners or fugitives in Kuwait or Iraq for the past four months.

Their individual stories varied. Some spoke, somewhat sheepishly, of maid service, computer games and regular meals in Kuwaiti suburban villas or Baghdad hotels, while others complained of hunger and stark conditions when they were "human shields" at Iraqi military installations. But none of the more than 1,000 foreign hostages who were released on Sunday were spared the dank anxiety of waiting for something bad to happen.

"Sorry if I'm touchy," said one, Randall Hampson, 37 years old, a computer systems analyst from San Diego, Calif., as he adjusted stiffly to freedom at the Frankfurt airport yesterday. Worry About an Attack

Mr. Hampson, who was captured in Kuwait at gunpoint on Sept. 4 and kept as a human shield at different Iraqi sites ever since, held up a burnt match. "We're like this match," he explained. "Our tops have been burned off."

Mr. Hampson and others were interviewed by reporters for The New York Times in various cities.

Tension was most acute for those who, like Mr. Hampson, were held as human shields in stragetic areas like dams and military installations, and were worried about surviving an American military attack. One group of 48 men, women and children, who were held at the Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery, dug trenches and bunkers while their Iraqi military guards watched and laughed. A Knock Meant Fresh Terror

For those who hid in Kuwait, either in safe houses provided by the Kuwaiti underground, or in villas and apartments -- and in a few cases, air conditioning ducts and high-rise crawl spaces -- every loud noise or knock on the door brought fresh terror. Even Europeans and Australians who were longtime residents of Kuwait, and who felt they could walk freely around Baghdad, felt the stress of not being able to go home.

There was a pattern of sorts to the mostly senseless weeks of waiting, judging from the accounts of those who were freed. The human shield exercise, the moving of captives from site to site to avert a military attack, was described as poorly organized and almost improvisational.

People in one band of frequently shuttled captives, for instance, defied an order to move to another site, and were eventually permitted to stay put. But the occupation of Kuwait, and the quelling of all resistance, was described as systematic terror by those who observed it in hiding.

Jeff Rickert, 30, a chemical worker from High Point, N.C., said he took his wife to the Kuwait airport on Aug. 14 so she could be evacuated with other Western women and children. Mr. Rickert stayed behind, and found himself amid chaos -- and 150 Iraqi soldiers patrolling the crowded waiting areas.

A member of Kuwait's anti-Iraqi forces approached him saying, "You don't belong here," and escorted him to a safe house, a villa in the suburbs of Kuwait City, where he remained until he was evacuated.

He was well cared for, he said, but feared for his protectors. "I saw five Kuwaiti civilians being taken into a chic villa next to where I was hiding," Mr. Rickert recalled. "Their hands were tied with bedsheets. After an hour and a half, they were dragged out with their faces all bloody. The soldiers were smashing their heads against the side of the truck."

Few of the hostages said they had witnessed atrocities first-hand, but many who stayed in Kuwait reported signs of looting, house-to-house searches and pillaging and what they described as severe food shortages for Kuwaiti citizens. Sanctions Ineffective; 'Never Will' Work

Mr. Rickert, who stayed in the villa with a few other Americans and one British citizen, estimated that at least 100 other Americans and Canadians had been protected by th Kuwaitis. He never went hungry, he said.

"Two days ago we had American apples," he said. "We had tangerines from Florida." He said he believed the fresh fruits had been smuggled in from Jordan, Iran and Lebanon. "The sanctions are not working and they never will," he said.

Some hostages, with help from well-organized expatriate underground networks as well as Kuwaiti and Palestinian groups, received a steady flow of food, mail, information and videocassettes.

"The Irish, the New Zealanders, the Danes and the Australians were able to move around freely and they all had their own networks," said William Mills, 62, an executive with M. W. Kellogg, who with his Iranian-born wife, Khadijah, hid from the Iraqi occupation forces in Kuwait in their apartment complex for four months.

In late August a bomb shelter was set up in an underground garage there with mattresses, food, water and other supplies. Lookouts warned Mr. Mills whenever Iraqi soldiers entered the two 19-story apartment towers in the complex. He would then hide during the search.

On more than one occasion Iraqi soldiers came to his apartment. "My wife would just say she lived alone and try to confuse them as best she could about her own identity," he said.

For a time the Millses sent mail out through an Australian network. Letters were picked up from his apartment, were taken to the Australian Embassy, shipped to Australia by diplomatic pouch and mailed there. Responses usually came by way of the Voice of America's Messages from Home program.

Once, in mid-September, Kellogg, an international construction and engineering company, had one of its Palestinian employees travel to Kuwait to visit Mr. Mills, bringing him money and messages. In Kuwait, 'Constant Fright'

Though most of the dozens of Westerners hidden in Kuwait spoke of fear and suspense, few felt they suffered materially. "Our basic living conditions were embarrassingly rather good," said David Dorrington, 43, an Englishman who hid in a suburban villa in Kuwait with five compatriots and a Filipino maid who, he said, "supplied us with everything and was absolutely magic."

"There was the constant fright of the knock on the door," Mr. Dorrington told reporters. "'Every time a car pulled up, my heart would stop beating."

All except one of those in Mr. Dorrington's group were eventually arrested by the Iraqis and taken to Baghdad three weeks before they were released. One man managed to evade capture, and Mr. Dorrington said he was expected to join others leaving the country.

"I believe we were given away by some Syrian neighbors," Mr. Dorrington said, adding that the Iraqis "were respectful but they were very, very nervous."

Harvey May, a 45-year-old English banker from Kent, was held by the Iraqis in a room at Kuwait University, which was considered to be a strategic site. There, Mr. May played computer games with colleagues, read books, watched Kuwaiti television and wrote a number of short stories.

"We had a daily diet of bread and watery soup and what we described as slops," Mr. May recalled. The food improved substantially until he was taken to a chemical factory near Baghdad, where "the guards were frightened of us more than we were of them." Again, he found the food was "diabolical." Losing Weight: 'No Bad Thing'

Though relieved to be returning to what he described as "walking the green fields of Kent without a man with a Kalashnikov telling me what I can or can't do," Mr. May described his ordeal with aplomb. He said he lost nearly 28 pounds over the months but added, "That is no bad thing."

None of the hostages said they risked confronting their armed, and often young, edgy guards, but there were a few cases of passive resistance. A small group of Japanese, British, German and American hostages held at the Basra airport in Iraq grew tired of their meager meals of hard bread and thin soup and held a brief food strike. Instead of punishing the rebels, their Iraqi guards arranged for a Western chef to prepare more appetizing fare.

Kuniyasu Nakagami, who was one of the hunger strikers, complained of boredom. He said he passed the time listening to the BBC and discussing different governments' responses to the crisis with his fellow prisoners.

"I felt ashamed of my Government because they never expressed a clear opinion or stated its principles," said Mr. Nakagami, who was a Kuwait-based employee of Arabian Gulf Mechanical Services until the invasion.

All the hostages described the same state of mind throughout their captivity: Fear, boredom and constant mood swings in between. Relief varied. Some found solace in exercise, reading, and listening to the radio. Others sought it with tranquilizers, and even old tapes of the Allman Brothers Band.

Some sought a fragile peace with their captors. William Van Dorp, a 38-year-old Texan who until the invasion taught technical English to Kuwaiti pilots, was held at a fertilizer plant in Basra that still bore scars of strafing by Iranian fighter planes. His spirits were bolstered after reading a book that contained a quotation from Patty Hearst: "When you are held captive, people somehow expect you to spit on your captor's face and be killed."

Mr. Van Dorp noted, "I felt it was important to get to know my captors because they were interesting to me, in that they initially scared me but 98 percent of the time behaved in a gentlemanly fashion."

He added: "Also, we all imagined that if the order came down from Baghdad that we were to be killed, they would most likely be the ones to do it. I wanted to get some leverage to make it difficult for them."

Mr. Van Dorp talked his guards into allowing him to exercise in a nearby pool, and he swam six times a week. "If you only consider whether your physical needs were met, we were treated well," he said. "The month of October was the bleakest, as far as food. I had diarrhea for three straight weeks. At our site, there was a plant doctor -- a pill dispenser really, who gave pills for such things. But I didn't take any."

Conditions improved as he got to know his captors. "From Day 1, we had shortwave radios," he recalled. "About a week into captivity, our guards asked if we had a radio. We said no, thinking they would take it. But they said 'We'll get you one.' That night they brought us two, with tape players." Mr. Van Dorp said guards provided tapes of Beethoven, Zamfir and "old, old Allman brothers." A Guard Provides A Ride to Freedom

It was one of his guards who informed him last Thursday that he and other hostages were to be flown home. "He drove me there himself, a six hour trip," Mr. Van Dorp said. "We drove via Babylon, though it was out of the way, because it was his hometown and he wanted me to see it. I met one of his friends. We sat in a small cafe and had tea and grapes and pomegranates. Then we went on to Baghdad."

Robert Vinton, 58, grew so tired of being moved around as a human shield that he defied his captors -- and survived it.

Mr. Vinton, a native Californian who worked in Iraq for Johnson Controls, a company based in San Francisco, was shopping for groceries in Baghdad the day of the invasion. Six soldiers surrounded him and ordered him at gunpoint to go home and fetch a passport and pack his suitcase. He was sent that night to the Melia Mansour Hotel in Baghdad and from there to what he called "the gulag."

Mr. Vinton was moved five times between different strategic sites around the Iraqi capital. "I don't know exactly what they did there," he said. "There were high fences and guards around the actual special projects compound." Mr. Vinton was one of eight people who lived in offices on the sites.

At one point the group of hostages defied an order by the guards to move to a different site yet another time. "I simply said I was not going to move again," Mr. Vinton said. "I wanted to know who was in charge of me. "Luckily, I drew the others with me. So we won. We weren't moved. They are really not that organized."

Mr. Vinton said he had read the historian Paul Kennedy's "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" while he was held by the Iraqis and that, for him, his captivity had given "new meaning" to Kennedy's theory of the flourishing and decline of great powers.

Other captives also said that after a time they were able to manipulate their guards. "At first we were sort of subservient, then you became the master and they became the slaves," said Mr. Hampson, the computer systems analyst. "I'd say, 'I'm going for a run.' At first they followed, then you ran alone."

At the oil refinery where he was held, Mr. Hampson received fresh water. He said he and the others lived in a maintenance building, two and three to a room. He was there with a few other Americans, an Air France flight crew and five British soldiers, a military liaison team. The members of the British team kept fellow hostages' spirits up by insisting on constant physical exertion.

"They were our strength," Mr. Hampson recalled. "Everyone had bad days, thinking about family, kids. And if you're having a bad day, they got you to do something. You got into a rut, and they'd say, 'Come play volleyball.' "

Mr. Hampson expressed far less enthusiasm for the United States State Department. He said he felt the department could have arranged to evacuate him in the first three days after the invasion. "They've not done anything to help us," Mr. Hampson said bitterly.

Hope for an Attack To Get It Over With Stuart Williams found the suspense and boredom so unnerving that he at times wished for a military attack just to get it over with.

Mr. Williams, 46, a banker from New York City, was wearing a white cowboy hat as he wheeled his luggage through the Frankfurt airport. His wife had a chance to leave Kuwait in mid-August, but since they have no small children or other special obligations, she decided to stay. They were held together at the Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery, part of the group of 48 men, women and children held there.

"We gave up hope of being released and were waiting to be liberated," Mr. Williams said."There was so much boredom and waiting. The feeling was, why don't they get it over?"

Mr. Williams said that he and others formulated plans in case of attack. "We built bunkers and trenches. The guards laughed at us. They thought it was funny."

Mr. Williams took a dim view of his captors. "They're not a homogenous group," he said. "Some of them are fairly professional. Behind them is a kind of undisciplined mob. They are the ones who are doing the raping and pillaging.

"And then there's a third level of really primitive farm boys who don't have any idea what they're supposed to be doing," he continued. "Some of the people guarding were frightened to death. They had been told that their throats would be slit if any of us escaped, and it was probably true." A Disco Available, But Not Used Much

There were also those who were unable to leave, yet who found their stay remarkably serene. "I haven't felt any danger since early September," said Dr. Geraldine Walsh, a 26-year-old doctor from Cork, Ireland, who was a contract employee at the Ibn al-Batar hospital, a private hospital in Baghdad. "We just went to work, played tennis and swam in the pool."

Dr. Walsh was one of eight Irish health-care professionals who had been required to stay in Baghdad after the invasion because their contract had not expired. Inspired by the mass exodus, the group flew to Amman, Jordan, on Sunday rather than wait for their company to organize a charter flight from Baghdad.

For four months, they lived tranquilly in a modern apartment complex with a pool, tennis courts and a disco, although they seldom used the disco. "We tried organizing a social committee to run social events," recalled Michael O'Brien, 56, the laboratory manager, "but no one's heart was in it -- morale was very low."

Even for those who lived well, spirits only really lifted upon arrival home. Graham Sims, a 36-year-old teacher from Essex, England, spent his entire captivity at the Sheraton Hotel in Baghdad, where barbecues and cocktail parties spiced the boredom and suspense. He allowed that he became inured to his relatively easy confinement, but even he shivered with anticipation at his release. "Now it is back to Britain," he said. "It sounds corny, but it's freedom, which a lot of people do not appreciate."

Photos: "There was the constant fright of the knock on the door," said David Dorrington of his days in Kuwait. His wife, Susan, met him in London. (Agence France-Presse) (pg. A1); Joseph Lammerding of Sacramento, Calif., in Frankfurt after his release. He said he would like to return to the Middle East as part of the United States forces.; "We had a daily diet of bread and watery soup and what we described as slops," said Harvey May of England. He was greeted yesterday in London by his wife, Barbara, and their son, David.; George Dahen of Delmont, Pa., in Frankfurt yesterday as he was about to board a plane for the United States. (Photographs by Associated Press); Some of the more than 1,000 foreign hostages who were released by Iraq on Sunday as they arrived in Washington yesterday. A former hostage had to carry an elderly woman who was too weak to walk. (Jose R. Lopez/The New York Times) (pg. A16) Map: Map of Iraq showing locations of where the hostages were kept. (pg. A16)